Tanit moved slowly to the right on a narrow path in front of the rock wall.
"Faster," Carlos ordered.
Caitlyn glanced at the sun. It was nearing the horizon in the distance.
The path suddenly widened, and the black hole of a cave gaped in the rock wall. Symbols had been painted in red on either side of the cave opening.
"We can't go in," Tanit whispered. He lowered his backpack to the ground. "The symbols are a warning. Whoever enters will die."
"We'll be fine as long as the sun is still up." Carlos dropped his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. "So who wants to be first to go inside the dark, scary cave?"
Caitlyn snorted, then dropped her backpack so she could remove her flashlight. Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind and jerked into an elbow lock. She gasped when Tanit pressed a knife to her throat.
In a flash Carlos dropped his flashlight and pulled his revolver.
Tanit stiffened, his arm tightening around her neck. "How did you move so fast?"
"I'm an excellent shot," Carlos growled. "I can kill you without harming a hair on Caitlyn's head. Let her go."
"No." Tanit stepped back, dragging her with him. "You can't go inside. It's forbidden."
Caitlyn's mind raced as she tried to remember her martial-arts training. Could she double over and flip Tanit onto his back? No, she couldn't lean forward without slitting her own throat. Maybe backward?
She reared back, throwing all her weight against Tanit. He stumbled back, and Carlos leaped forward, wrenching the knife from Tanit's hand. Caitlyn scrambled out of their way. By the time she regained her footing, Carlos had Tanit pinned to the ground with the knife at his throat.
"Are you all right?" Carlos glanced at her. When she nodded, he said, "Get my gun. I dropped it."
She ran to pick up his pistol.
"Please," Tanit breathed. "I don't want to die."
"Talk," Carlos growled. "Whose orders are you following?"
Tanit gulped. "If I disobey, they'll kill me."
"Disobey whom?" Caitlyn ventured closer. "The Master?"
Tanit's eyes bulged. "How do you know about him? It is forbidden to speak of him except to the Guardians."
"Is the professor a Guardian?" Carlos asked.
Tanit nodded. "The Master will be very angry if we defile the temple."
"What temple?" Carlos asked.
Tanit looked toward the cave. "It's a Temple of Death. Only the Master is allowed inside." He trembled with fear. "Master Han is a great and powerful chiang-shih. He has killed thousands. We will die if we go inside. Please. We must - "
"Look at me," Carlos interrupted. "Your master cannot harm us during the day. We'll stake him, and then you'll be free."
Tanit's eyes filled with tears. "It's too late. I saw you shift into a cat, and I told the professor. He ordered me to stay with you until the Guardians come for you."
Caitlyn exchanged a worried look with Carlos. Why would a vampire want a were-panther?
Carlos stood and dragged Tanit to his feet. "It doesn't matter. By the time the Guardians find me, your master will already be dead. The game will be over."
Tanit whimpered. "It is impossible to kill Master Han. He can live forever."
"We shall see." Carlos shoved him toward the mouth of the cave. He skidded to a stop in the pebbles.
Carlos wedged Tanit's knife under his belt. Caitlyn handed him the gun, and he holstered it. He picked up the flashlight and shouldered his backpack.
She did the same while her heart raced. She didn't want to admit it, but she was as scared as Tanit.
"Ready?" Carlos asked her.
She glanced at the sun. It was low enough to paint the sky pink and gold. "We'd better hurry." And get this over with.
Carlos grabbed Tanit by the arm and escorted him inside the cave.
Caitlyn followed. The setting sun shone inside for a short distance. The interior was a large room, wide and deep. Far in the distance, her light picked out a narrow opening. This room might be the first of many.
"What's all this?" Carlos shone his flashlight overhead. Ropes crisscrossed the ceiling over them, and yellow strips of paper dangled from the ropes.
"Those are prayers," Tanit whispered. "Buddhist prayers to keep the evil in this cave from escaping."
Caitlyn looked around the empty cave. "Who left them?"
"Him." Carlos's flashlight beam landed on a man's skeleton. His tattered orange robes identified him as a Buddhist monk.
Caitlyn drew in a sharp breath. A spear protruded from the monk's rib cage. "Someone murdered him."
"I told you!" Tanit cried. "Any who enter this cave will die!"
"Relax. It looks like it happened years ago." Carlos shone his flashlight at the narrow opening in the distance. "We need to go through there." He walked forward.
Caitlyn followed closely. Tanit hung back, his face deathly white.
Carlos took a step and froze when a metallic click echoed through the cave. "Booby-trapped."
"What?" Caitlyn didn't have time to think or react. The ground shuddered under her feet. Carlos grabbed her and leaped forward, much farther than any human could have. They landed, falling forward.
She glanced back and saw the ground caving in, taking Tanit with it. He screamed, then disappeared. A cloud of dust rose from a ditch that now pided the cave room into two halves.
"Tanit!" She crawled to the edge of the ditch and gasped. Iron spikes shot up from the bottom of the ditch, and Tanit was impaled on one of them.
She screamed and looked away.
Carlos grabbed her and held her tight. "It's all right."
"He's dead!"
Carlos grabbed her by the upper arms. "Caitlyn, we have to stay calm. The cave is booby-trapped. I think we made it past the first one because the Buddhist monk set it off."
She drew in a shaky breath. "We wouldn't have survived the second one if you couldn't leap like a cat."
"There could be a third one. We have to be careful."
She started to shake. They could no longer get to the cave entrance. It was cut off by the ditch with spikes. And they couldn't move forward without setting off another death trap. "How can we move?"
"Don't worry, sweetheart." He squeezed her arms. "I'll get you through this." He took off his backpack and tossed it forward a few feet, angled to the right.
Nothing happened.
"Okay, that space is safe." Carlos stepped close to the backpack and picked it up. He held out his hand to Caitlyn.
She grabbed his hand and stepped close to him. Just a few feet more and they could slip through the narrow gap. "Do you think the next room is safe?"
"Probably so. That ditch was designed to take out an entire group."
She shuddered, and the beam from her flashlight quivered. Poor Tanit. They shouldn't have forced him to come inside.
Carlos tossed his backpack again, and it landed just to the right of the entrance. When nothing happened, he lunged toward it and picked it up. He reached for Caitlyn.
It was a jump for her. She leaped, but overcompensated and bounced into him hard. When she fell backward, he dropped his backpack to grab her.
Click.
A spear flew from a hidden crack in the cave wall, zooming straight toward them.
"Get down!" He pushed her down and jumped in front of her.
She fell on her rump and looked up just in time to see him jolt. The point of a spear shot through his stomach, coming to a stop inches from her face.
She screamed. Carlos shuddered, his face pale, his eyes wide with shock. He collapsed to his knees.
She scrambled to her feet. The spear had impaled him from the back. "Oh God, no."
He crumbled onto his side.
"Carlos." She knelt beside him. She could see him before her but didn't want to believe it. He couldn't die. Not Carlos.
With shaking hands he grasped the spear that protruded from his stomach. "Not much time," he rasped. He gritted his teeth and attempted to break the shaft of the spear. He cried out in pain.
"Carlos, what are you doing?"
"Have to break off the point. Help me."
She stared at the blood rapidly coating his hands.
He fumbled for a knife at his belt. "Help me."
She pulled the knife free and sawed at the spear shaft.
"Let me try again." He gritted his teeth and snapped the shaft in two. "Pull it out of me. From the back."